Innocence
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: After the Rebellion, Johanna visits Annie and her little son Finn in District 4. On the beach during her visit, Johanna feels bittersweet as she watches the young mother try to teach her son how to swim.


_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own The Hunger Games. I need to get back into Hunger Games. Gotta watch Catching Fire! And also, I think we're all going to die next film with Finnick and Anne aka the even more tragic star-crossed lovers.  
**

It's a soft, cloud-filled sky. The sun is hidden gently in the blue expanse. Not too hot, not too cold. Beams fall through perpendicular to the wind, which causes Annie's dark brown hair to fly in the wind. It falls free past her shoulders. She stands with her bare arms folded over her green bathing suit. She bites her lip as she looks out at the shore in front of her. White-laced, foamy waves break and return in front of her. The sound of the sea roars in her ears. It's beautiful. She smiles softly.

Johanna sits at her feet. Her body is covered in a dark brown bikini and her mouth is in a scowl. She can't help but feel bitter on Annie's behalf, on behalf on anyone who's ever met Finnick, against the Capitol. Especially at times like this, when the young widow just watches the sea, as if she thinks he's on a ship and she's just waiting patiently for his return. Johanna learned in the past that saying harshly that he wasn't coming back bent Annie down to her knees in sobs. The Rebellion has mellowed Johanna, and Annie's childlike presence has silenced her serpent's tongue.

"Aunt Joey, lookie!" Johanna's brown eyes turn down and she decides that agonizing on feelings is stupid. She turns back to her little prodigy, the dimpled result of Annie and Finnick's brief union. Little Finn sits as two-years-old with his fat little legs spreading out and his hair covered in bronze colored curls. It's a hard, bitter reminder just being around the innocent baby. But Johanna has been dubbed his Aunt Joey. So she smiles and plays the part of the happy, carefree aunt for him.

"You broke our sandcastle. You broke the entire city we made," Johanna says. "Make something else, kid."

Finn instead decides to pour sand into his curls. Johanna can't help the twisted, sincere smile on her face. She realized early after the Rebellion how broken and pathetic all the people she knew were. Her family was dead. She hadn't anyone to live for. So she floated around the Districts; insulted and ate the food of a distant friend here, reminisced with a faded Victor there. So far, after Gale's grim reception in District 2 and Peeta and Katniss's depression, District 4 is her favorite. The little kid reminds her of Finnick, and Annie needs a friend. Desperately. The two Victors have both lost a lot because of the Capitol, and the two of them, while rarely speaking during Johanna's stay, feel better knowing the other is near. Johanna feels loyalty to Finnick; she owes him to make sure Annie stays fine. That is all he ever wanted, right?

Johanna looks at the water drawing near their sand covered feet. "Hey, kid. Let's go wading."

"No water."

Johanna can barely believe her ears. "No water?"

"Finn no want the water."

Johanna then firmly but gently holds his arms in her hands, making him look her in the eyes. Green to the brown. He bites his lip. "Finn, you know what? Aunt Joey hates water. Deplores it. But you should like the water." Water saved his mother. His father drew skills from his time on the water. Johanna bites her lip as well. Oh, she's terrible with children. Too coarse. She clears her throat and whispers, "Finn loves the water."

"Finn don't." The little boy shakes his head in earnest.

"There are fishes in the water. Everything is blue in there. It's fun." Johanna has as much hope in this child as anyone who sees this beautiful, innocent kid and knows what they fought for. Her hope is that this boy will be as much like his father as he can possibly be. She doesn't care how painful it will be to look at him at age fourteen and know his father went to the Hunger Games at his age. No. Because of Finnick and his sacrifice, his son will have the most painless childhood Johanna can imagine. But how can she convey that to a two-year-old?

Finn, however, contemplates. "Aunt Joey go in wit' me."

Johanna is, for once, startled. "No. Finn goes in. I'll watch with Mommy, right?" She can practically feel veins rising on her bald scalp, the electric current racing through every stream in her body; she feels the faint trickle of water down her spine. She shudders, stands up, and says, "Come on, Finn."

"No." He folds his arms. He's inherited his aunt's stubbornness.

"Finn, damn it, the water is perfectly fine!" Johanna snaps.

Annie is startled out of her clouded stupor. She kneels, sand grinding into her legs, and clasps her son's tiny, chubby hands in her small, tan ones, almost ignoring Johanna. "Daddy loved the water, Finn," she says softly, kindly. Johanna realizes how motherly her tone is and her maternal her manner is, and feels inadequate.

Annie stands up, drawing her son to his feet as well. They wade gently into the water, just a few inches. Finn chatters his teeth and then Annie asks, "You should learn how to swim, Finn. I learned when I was very little. It was a very good thing that I knew how to later."

_Or the two of you wouldn't exist. _Johanna worries a hole in her lip as Annie draws her son into her arms and wades farther so the water's taller than him; the toddler barely notices. His arm loop around his mother's short neck and he cackles, his tiny scattered teeth making up his crooked smile.

Annie floats Finn on his back, holding him aloft with the help of the water with her hands. She whispers instructions and smiles softly when he obeys. He kicks water in her eyes and cries until he turns red when he gets water in his eyes. Annie holds him against her shoulder and says, turning back to Johanna, "He will learn someday."

"No doubt about that," Johanna says.

In the end, Finn sits in the shallow water and smacks his hands together and chuckles. Sometimes he gets up and walks a little closer, the white foam drawing past his knees and his inquiring hands clasping a broken seashell. He doesn't cry anymore. Even if he did, his mother and aunt aren't more than a yard away. His aunt sits on the white sand, her legs bent and her eyes now covered with sunglasses. She hides behind them and her sarcastic words, her brittle personality, so that Annie can't see how pained she is, how she feels so deeply for these two in front of her who are so innocent. One born and still pure, tiny and chuckling, and the other driven to that or absolute depression in deep depths. Johanna can't help but watch the baby playing in the water and the young mother watching in the distance, waiting for a ship to return bearing her bronze-haired husband, and feel envy for them.

**Thanks for reading! **


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